Yesterday,
the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a largely useless, but
still widely published, news release entitled “Independence Day: Drills
for the Grill.” See News Release, www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/NR_062909_01/index.asp
While notable for a cheery and reassuring tone, the information
provided is, at best, unhelpful, and, at worst, is dangerously
misleading. In addition to providing little in the way of substantive
food safety information about how to “safely” grill a burger, the FSIS
news release deceitfully soft-pedals the real risks posed by ground beef,
generally, and outdoor grilling in particular. For example, the new
release clumps together hamburgers, steak, chicken, hot dogs, and ribs as
if all can be treated in the same way, and pose the same relative
risk—which is blatantly false. And also, how can anyone at FSIS expect to
educate the public about safely grilling ground beef (the real risk here)
without once mentioning E.
coli O157:H7,
the primary risk?

Take, for
example, the introductory quote from FSIS Administrator, Alfred V.
Almanza, who states: “Safe food handling is always important, but during
the warm summer months — peak grilling season — there is an increased
need for awareness of safe food handling practices.” Well, Mr. Almanza,
why is that? Could it be because numerous research studies have shown
that the incidence of E.
coli O157:H7
in cattle rises significantly during the spring, and peaks during the
summer months? See,
e.g.,
Edrington, et
al, 2006.
Seasonal shedding of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in ruminants: a new
hypothesis. Foodborne Pathog Dis 3:413-21; Hancock, et al., 1994. The prevalence of
Escherichia coli O157.H7 in dairy and beef cattle in Washington State.
Epidemiol Infect 113:199-207; Hancock, et al., 1997. A longitudinal study of
Escherichia coli O157 in fourteen cattle herds. Epidemiol Infect 118:193-5;
and Hussein, et al., 2005. Prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing
Escherichia coli in beef cattle. J Food Prot 68:2224-41. Why not
level with the public and tell them that ground beef simply tends to be
more dangerous in the summer, and that is when a higher than average
percentage of E. coli O157:H7 infections occur? Of course, that
might make the USDA look bad, and could further depress the sales of
ground beef.

(Please click on Continue Reading to view the rest of this
article.)

Another reason the safe
grilling practices are particularly important is because grilling burgers
on a barbecue grill is an exceedingly risky practice that is almost
certain to result in burgers not consistently reaching an internal
temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit? Snyder, O. P. 2005. Cooking
hamburgers on a Weber outdoor grill. HITM. St. Paul, MN.: http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents2005/hamb-cook-webgrill-6-4-05.pdf
And the USDA spent years and years telling people to rely on
color as an indication of doneness when cooking hamburger patties, but
then switched in June 1997 and started recommending the use of
thermometers to determine doneness. See FSIS Technical Publication, Color
of Cooked Ground Beef as it Relates to Doneness, available www.fsis.usda.gov/oa/pubs/colortech.htm
(citing the studies that prompted the changed recommendation). Or because
once the USDA started to recommend the use of a thermometer use, it was
inappropriate and inaccurate bi-metallic coil thermometer (the one that
appears on the USDA safe-handling instructions on all meat) that was
consistently suggested. See, e.g. O. Peter Snyder, Ph.D., The Dangerous
Bi-Metallic Thermometer, available at www.hi-tm.com/Documents2001/hamburger-temp.pdf
(“USDA-recommended bimetallic coil thermometer is an inaccurate,
awkward, and complicated device for measuring the temperature of highly
contaminated, government-inspected and improved raw foods that cooks must
pasteurize”).

Notably, yesterday’s
press-release recommends the “use of an instant-read thermometer,” which
is an excellent recommendation. But few consumers even own this kind of
thermometer, let alone use one. McCurdy, et al., 2004. Availability,
accuracy and response time of instant-read food thermometers for consumer
use. Food Prot. Trends. 24(12):961-968. A 2006 food safety survey conducted
by—you guessed it—the USDA (and FDA) found that only 13% of consumers
always or often use a thermometer, of any kind, when cooking hamburgers.
Lando and Verril, 2008. 2006 USDA/FDA Food Safety Survey, www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/crnu-tri7.html
And there is also the significant risk that the temperature measured
in one place on the hamburger will be different than the temperature
elsewhere. Berry, B. W., and Bigner-George, M.E. 2001. Postcooking
temperature changes in beef patties. J. Food Prot. 64(9):1405-1411.

And then there is the
low infectious dose of E. coli O157:H7, and its virulence. Patricia M.
Griffin, et al., Large Outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 Infections in
the Western United States: The Big Picture, in RECENT ADVANCES IN
VEROCYTOTOXIN-PRODUCING ESCHERICHIA COLI INFECTIONS, at 7 (M.A. Karmali
& A. G. Goglio eds. 1994) (“The most probable number of E. coli
O157:H7 was less than 20 organisms per gram.”) Patricia M. Griffin &
Robert V. Tauxe, The Epidemiology of Infections Caused by Escherichia
coli O157:H7, Other Enterohemorrhagic E. coli, and the Associated
Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, 13 Epidemiologic Reviews 60, 73 (1991) (“an
organism that can be transmitted by exposure to extremely few
organisms.”) Indeed, the USDA has repeatedly noted that a primary reason
behind the decision to treat E. coli O157:H7 as an adulterant per se is
“the low infectious dose of E. coli O157:H7 associated with foodborne
disease outbreaks and the very severe consequences of an E. coli O157:H7
infection.” See Beef Products Contaminated with Escherichia coli
O157:H7, 64 Fed. Reg. 2803, at 2804 (Jan. 19, 1999).

Finally, there is the
issue of the cooking instructions that appear on the packages of frozen
ground beef patties, one of the most popular products purchased for
purposes of outdoor grilling. By law, the USDA is supposed to approves
the labels of meat and poultry products, which includes any cooking
instructions. But a recently published study compared the cooking
instructions on 37 retail packages and found a huge variation in
suggested cook times (from 1.5 to 8 minutes per side), and inconsistent
advice on whether to use a thermometer or rely on the color of the patty
to determine doneness. S. McCurdy, et al., Label Instructions and Cooking
Times for Retail Frozen Ground Beef Patties, Food Prot. Trends, 29 (6,
335-41 (June 2009). The study found many cooking instructions “are
inadequate to produce a safely cooked patty.” And these are instructions supposedly
approved by the USDA.

So if consumers cannot
even rely on the USDA-approved cooking instructions printed on the box of
frozen ground beef patties, how can they be expected to take seriously a
new release about the “food safety ‘drills of the grill’”? I certainly
wouldn’t.

(Oh, and by the way, if
you do want to grill burgers, I would suggest that you cook all hamburger
patties on a cooking rack in your oven set at 350 degrees. After cooking
for 15-20 minutes, check the temperature of each patty in multiple
locations with a digital read thermometer. If all readings are above 150
degrees, remove the patties from the cooking rack to a warm platter. Now
take those patties out to the barbecue grill so you can put grill marks
on them. Happy cooking!)